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My favourite book as a child was about a family of bears who wander through the woods behind their house. They venture between the rocks, around the lake and up Spook Hill, where they encounter an owl who howls loudly (mimicked extremely well by my father at the time). The bears turn tail and run all the way, down Spook Hill, back around the lake and between the rocks…home through the window to their bed in their well-lit, completely safe home. I’m not sure if it was the howling, the suspense or the running home that grabbed my attention, but something in that book did. It grabbed me and held onto me virtually every night for many years of my childhood.

Last night I was awakened by a similar howling, coming from Leith’s room. I slowly emerged from the warm, comfortable sleep in which I was indulging and lay there in the dark, wondering what the noise was. I heard another long howl and my feet immediately hit the floor. I wasn’t quite awake when I found myself beside Leith’s bed, gazing down at my loveable son who was crying his little heart out. I bundled him up in his blanket and sat down with him in my lap and rocked him back and forth, whispering to him over and over that he was going to be okay.

After a few minutes he had calmed down, was heavy and warm in my arms and ready to go back to his bed. I tucked him in, said good night and went back to my own room. After about two minutes the crying started again – not as loud or as determined as before but still plaintive and heart wrenching. He stopped on his own this time but I couldn’t sleep anymore so I got up, put on my slippers and padded to the kitchen.

What do you do at 3 am when you can’t get back to sleep? I don’t find that the old warm milk trick does anything for me. A nice hot cup of peppermint tea is more my speed…and something sweet on the side to fill my belly enough that I can get back to sleep. Luckily, I keep some tidbits in my freezer for just these occasions. Slices of dessert bread or cookie dough, in small packages, ready for the oven; awaiting me when I need them most. All I have to do is turn on the toaster oven, pop one of these little beauties in for a few minutes (about as long as it takes to boil water for a cup of tea). Soon I’m seated, wrapped in my ruby red chenille throw, sipping my tea and munching on something sweet.

It calmed my nerves and obviously Leith’s as well because he didn’t wake again over night. I am still not sure what it was that woke him in the first place. The howling noises I made while reading his favourite book over and over? Another cold? Missing his father? Who knows. But he slept – much like a baby – the rest of the night, as did I after having my small, sweet treat and a few sips of tea.

“Breakfast for dinner” is a phrase that is turned quite often in my parents house. My mom LOVES it (but at her own concession, the woman worships anything that might come with bacon), my dad enjoys it a lot, and my brothers? Well, “Bacon and eggs? Now? You mean for dinner? Um, okay, why not?” is sort of their general attitude. Actually “why not?” seems to be their general attitude about everything, I think…they’re men. So I grew up in a house where breakfast for dinner was a semi-regular occurrence and I became rather attached to the idea myself.

Leith has wholeheartedly embraced this idea and eggs are probably one of his favourite meals. He likes his eggs every-which-way-but-loose, to be honest.

Oftentimes even the simplest of fares can convey a sense of comfort, a feeling of joy and add a certain amount of contentment to your day. Merely the smell of something baking in the oven, a hint of nutmeg or the tang of ginger is all you need to make you feel warm and placated after a long day of rain and chilly wind beating against the windows of your home. In fact, the scent of baking is supposed to enhance the beauty of your surroundings to such a degree that most realtors insist that you perfume your home surreptitiously with cinnamon, orange, vanilla or apple when you are showcasing it to perspective buyers.

These smells are, to some people, aphrodisiacal. The aromas of vanilla and cinnamon, as perfumes, have proven themselves over and over again in so many contexts over the years. Women, men and children stop me in the halls at work and insist that I must have cookies in my pockets (and every so often I do). I got into a car with a friend recently and she told me I smelled like Cocoa-Puffs (personally I think she might have been a bit "koo-koo for cocoa puffs"). My old boss used to search my desk drawers when I was at work, assured that there had to be piles of Rice Krispie Squares hidden in there somewhere.

These sweet, slightly musky scents have never had an adverse effect on anyone I’ve met and I don’t even really notice them anymore until someone else points them out to me. I also don’t wear vanilla or cinnamon perfumes, but rather oils, which have no alcohol base to it; making it much more subtle and less annoying than regular perfume (I am actually allergic to regular perfume).

Blending cinnamon and vanilla in proper quantities in desserts is something I love to do. You get the bite of the cinnamon and then the long, smooth slow sweetness of the vanilla. It’s like the perfect kiss.

Growing up I was terminally shy. I hid in my mother’s or father’s arms, even around family and close family friends. I stammered and stuttered and tried over and over to edge myself into society. It never took and I spent most of my younger years simply not talking.

Once I started cooking and eating the way that I do, somehow I became much more of a social person. Years ago you would have been hard-pressed to drag me out for a glass of wine, a bite to eat or a cup of coffee, unless you were the closest of friends or family. Even then it took a great deal of negotiations, imploring, insisting, pleading and whining on your part…if you were indeed up to it, and considered me worth it.

I’m not sure why that was, or why I’m so different now. My personality hasn’t changed drastically since then and I don’t think I’m much more interesting or approachable now than I was then. In fact there are aspects of my personality that are more closed off and difficult than before and my schedule is more compressed with a job, a small child, an away-all-the-time husband.

All that aside I am a huge fan of "going for coffee". I like to drink coffee as much as anyone, but I like to go for coffee even more. And if the chosen coffee spot happens to have good sweet side dishes then all the better. A very good friend of mine introduced me to this coffee and gelato cafe near where I work a few summers ago, and we went there often. The first time I went I had their caramel apple coffee cake and fell madly in love with it. I found myself craving it more and more until one day, without warning, the shop closed. No "moved" sign, no chance of reopening. It was gone. Since that day I have been searching for a recipe that would attempt to compare. Finally when I couldn’t find one that quite worked, I came up with one myself that is amazing.

AND…mine is actually better than theirs. This leads me to think, who needs friends when they can bake like this?

Okay, I admit it: I hate going grocery shopping. Don’t get me wrong, given the right circumstances and absolutely no company, I can be compelled to wander aisles and read labels and get lost in shelves of various types of hot sauce or roasted red peppers. I can spend eons comparing breads and trying to decide just what kind of cheese to purchase. But I don’t like to grocery shop.

I love muffins. Breakfast, lunch or dinner I could eat one and be full and content. They come in all different flavours too: chocolate chip, raisin bran, lemon-cranberry, banana-nut, blueberry-buttermilk or apple-oatmeal or just about any combination of all of the above. When I’m grabbing my coffee in the late-morning after a super busy meeting or mid-afternoon after an intense morning I am often swayed in the direction of a muffin to go along with that coffee. After eating one though, I often tend to regret the rash decision…

It is really quite difficult to find a good muffin out there. You can, quite easily, procure great coffee, the perfect loaf of bread, amazing pastries and delicious cakes. Marvelous muffins however seem to be, for reasons unknown, a lot more difficult. Mainly because muffins have gone from being relatively healthy, light-ish breakfast fare to being heavy, super-sweet, full-of-sugar, cake-like delicacies. They are no longer the stuff of quick snacks, rather they are desserts…and quite filling ones at that.

While it’s not difficult to dutifully google "low fat muffin recipes" and be rewarded with page upon page of choices, not one recipe I found was actually appealing to me. I could easily have made any one of them, but knew I wouldn’t really want to eat the muffins after baking them. Most of the recipes unfortunately thought that "low-fat" should be synonymous with "low-taste" and in my books that does not a good muffin make. I mean, who wants to eat something that tastes like cardboard, and sometimes not even that good…?

After a few trials and errors, a few mishaps in my kitchen and a few curses at my own in disability as a muffin chef I almost gave up. Then last week I came across a fairly yummy-sounding recipe that I thought I could switch around just a bit and make it into some really worth-while, healthy — but still tasty and filling — muffins.

I do believe I succeeded in this endeavor this time with these meal replacement kitchen sink muffins. In fact, I took one to a co-worker and after scarfing the whole thing down quite quickly she turned to me and said "Well, Jennifer, that was probably the best muffin I have ever had".